Olivia: Jackson, what’s the one ingredient every classic Christmas story absolutely needs? Jackson: Oh, easy. A heartwarming moment of redemption. Maybe some snow. Definitely a happy ending where everyone learns the true meaning of Christmas. Olivia: Exactly. Well, the book we’re diving into today has the snow, but it flips everything else on its head. It’s a Christmas story where the act of redemption might just ruin everything for everyone. Jackson: I love that. A Christmas story with stakes. What is it? Olivia: We're talking about Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. And it is a tiny book, barely a novella, but it packs the punch of an epic. Jackson: That’s right! This isn't just some quiet literary novel; it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, which is incredible for a story that's barely over 100 pages long. That tells you it's doing something really important. Olivia: It absolutely is. And you can feel why. Keegan herself grew up in rural Ireland, and her writing has this deep, almost painful understanding of how small communities work—the loyalties, the unspoken rules, and especially the secrets. The book is set in 1985, and that setting is the first crucial piece of the puzzle. It feels… bleak.

Jackson: Bleak is a good word for 1980s Ireland from what I understand. High unemployment, emigration… a tough time. Olivia: Precisely. Keegan paints this picture of the town of New Ross where the times are "raw." Furlong, our protagonist, is a coal and timber merchant, so his business is doing okay because people need to stay warm. But all around him, things are falling apart. The shipyard closed, factories are laying people off, dole queues are getting longer. She includes this heartbreaking little detail of a young boy foraging for sticks in the rain because his family can't afford fuel. Jackson: Wow. So everyone is just trying to survive. That kind of constant, grinding fear must make people turn inward, right? You just focus on looking after your own family and block out everything else. Olivia: That’s the exact mechanism the book explores. And in the middle of this town, perched on a hill, is the Good Shepherd convent. On the surface, it looks like a Christmas card—pristine lawns, picturesque buildings. They run a laundry service with a sterling reputation. Guesthouses, restaurants, even the priests use it. Items come back "same as new." Jackson: Okay, but I’m sensing a ‘but’ coming. A very big ‘but’. Olivia: A very big but. Because everyone in the town whispers about what really goes on inside. The "training school" for girls isn't a school. The rumors are that it’s a place for "girls of low character"—unmarried mothers, mostly—forced into unpaid, back-breaking labor from dawn till night. Jackson: So, a Magdalen laundry. Olivia: Exactly. One of the most shameful chapters in modern Irish history. And the rumors are specific and grim. The local nurse treated a fifteen-year-old from the convent for varicose veins from standing at washtubs all day. People whisper that the nuns are selling the babies for adoption to rich Americans. But then, other rumors circulate that the nuns themselves are saints, living on bread and butter. The truth is deliberately muddled. Jackson: But if there were such specific, awful rumors, why didn't anyone do anything? Were they all just monsters? Olivia: That's the terrifying question the book poses. And the answer is no, they're not monsters. They're ordinary people trapped in what we’re calling the 'architecture of silence.' The Church's power was absolute, socially and economically. The convent is a reliable customer. To question it is to risk everything. This idea is perfectly embodied by Furlong's wife, Eileen. Jackson: What’s her take on it? Olivia: When Furlong eventually voices his unease, Eileen shuts him down completely. She represents the voice of the community, the voice of self-preservation. She says, and this is a direct quote, "If you want to get on in life, there’s things you have to ignore, so you can keep on." She argues the nuns pay on time, which is more than you can say for others. She says thinking too much just brings you down. Jackson: That’s a brutal philosophy. Just look the other way to get ahead. Olivia: It gets worse. Furlong, trying to make her see, asks the ultimate question: "But what if it was one of ours?" And Eileen’s reply is just four words. It’s one of the most chilling lines I’ve ever read. She says, "'Tis not one of ours." Jackson: Whoa. 'Tis not one of ours. That just draws a line in the sand. Empathy stops at our front door. It makes you wonder, in a town full of Eileens, how do you get a Bill Furlong? What makes him different?

Olivia: And that is the heart of the entire story. Furlong is different because he was never fully part of the "us" that Eileen is so desperate to protect. His backstory is the key that unlocks his conscience. He was born illegitimate in 1946. His mother was a sixteen-year-old domestic servant, and when she got pregnant, her own family disowned her. Jackson: A story as old as time, sadly. Especially in that time and place. Olivia: But here’s the twist. Her employer, a Protestant widow named Mrs. Wilson, did something extraordinary. Instead of firing her, she kept her on. She let her have the baby, Bill, and raised him in her own house. Mrs. Wilson was an outsider herself—a Protestant in a Catholic country—and she showed a kindness that defied all social convention. She taught him to read, gave him responsibilities, and when he was a boy and won a spelling prize, she told him, "You're a credit to yourself." That simple affirmation made him feel "as much as any other child." Jackson: Ah, so he's not part of the tribe that Eileen is protecting. He knows what it's like to be on the outside, to be the one people whisper about. His empathy isn't theoretical; it's biographical. He was one of 'theirs' before he became one of 'ours'. Olivia: You've nailed it. His whole life is a testament to an act of kindness that broke the rules. But that doesn't make him a simple hero. He's a man worn down by life. There's this incredible passage where he reflects on the endless, repetitive nature of his work. He remembers a summer job at a mushroom factory, where he’d finish a row only to see new mushrooms already pushing through where he started. Jackson: That’s a powerful metaphor for futility. Olivia: It haunts him. He thinks, "What was it all for? The work and the constant worry... Might things never change or develop into something else, or new?" He loves his wife and five daughters fiercely, but he’s starting to wonder what else matters. And into this quiet existential crisis, the convent drops a bomb. Jackson: The discovery. Olivia: The discovery. He makes an early delivery and finds his way into the convent's chapel. And there they are. More than a dozen young women and girls on their hands and knees, polishing the floor, shoeless, in "horrid type of grey-coloured shifts." One of them, with a Dublin accent, approaches him and begs for help. Jackson: What does she say? Olivia: It's devastating. She asks him to take her to the river. When he’s confused, she clarifies: she wants to drown herself. She pleads, "Can you not even do that fukken much for us?" Furlong, stunned, just shows her his empty hands and says he has a wife and five girls at home. He leaves. He does nothing. Jackson: Oh, man. That is gut-wrenching. He walks away. Olivia: He walks away. And the guilt eats him alive. But this is so powerful, and I have to ask something I saw in some of the criticism of the book. Why is the hero a man? The story is about the profound suffering of women and girls, but our window into it, our agent of change, is a man. Does that choice sideline the victims? Jackson: That’s a really fair question. It’s something I thought about too. On one hand, you want to hear directly from the women. On the other, maybe Keegan’s point is about the nature of complicity itself. The people with the power to stop it were men—fathers, brothers, priests, businessmen like Furlong. The story isn't just about the victims; it's about the society that created them. It’s an examination of the responsibility of the bystander. Olivia: I think that's it. It's a story about a man confronting his own role in that architecture of silence. His journey is about realizing that his comfort is built on the suffering of others, and deciding he can no longer live with that bargain. And that leads to the climax. Furlong, wrestling with all this—his past, his wife's pragmatism, the girl's plea—finally makes a choice.

Jackson: He goes back, doesn't he? Olivia: He goes back. On Christmas Eve, he drives to the convent, finds the girl—her name is Sarah—locked in the coal shed, and he just... takes her. He walks her through the town, past the judgmental stares of his neighbors, and brings her home. Jackson: He brings the problem home. He makes her 'one of ours.' Olivia: Exactly. He shatters Eileen's rule. And in that moment, Furlong feels an "un-recognisable joy," a happiness greater than anything he's ever known, even as he knows he will "pay for it." He understands that the worst thing wasn't the trouble ahead, but the "thing not done" that would have haunted him for the rest of his life. Jackson: Wow. So the title, Small Things Like These, it’s not just about the small cruelties, but also the small-seeming acts of courage that are actually monumental. Olivia: It's everything. It's the small act of Mrs. Wilson taking in his mother. It's the small act of Furlong taking Sarah home. And Keegan drives this home with the author's note at the very end of the book, which rips you out of the fiction and plants you in historical fact. She states that an estimated 30,000 women were incarcerated in these laundries. And the last one, the very last one, didn't close until 1996. Jackson: 1996. That’s not ancient history. That’s my lifetime. It’s staggering. It reframes the whole story. Furlong isn't just a fictional hero; he's the person who should have existed, thousands of times over, but so rarely did. Olivia: He is the embodiment of a conscience in a world that has decided to have none. His simple act of walking a girl home becomes a radical defiance of an entire system of church and state power. Jackson: It’s a book that doesn't give you an easy answer. It just leaves you with a profound and uncomfortable question. It makes you look around and ask yourself, what 'small thing' am I ignoring right now? What convent is on my street that I've just chosen not to see? Olivia: It's a heavy but vital question. And it’s one that stays with you long after you finish this short, perfect book. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. What did Furlong's choice mean to you? Find us on our socials and join the conversation. Jackson: This is Aibrary, signing off.